To Turn Back Time
by Kay Willow
Summary: There was always somewhere she could go when she was scared or lonely. It's been a long time, but Hinamori Momo needs that comfort now more than ever, when she has nothing else. //Hitsugaya Hinamori//


**.to turn back time.**

The truth was that Momo didn't know why she went back to Junrinan. She didn't even know she was going there until she slid to a neat halt in front of familiar scenery, and looked up, thinking, _Isn't that Hitsugaya-kun's house?_

She put a nervous hand to her hair, straightening the little pieces that had escaped their neat bun while she flash-stepped. He wouldn't be there, of course -- he had more important things to do than loiter in Rukongai; war to prepare for, a division to take care of; the same things she should be doing and wasn't -- but the house wasn't empty. His grandmother would be there, where she had always been, ever since before Momo could remember.

A sudden, wild urge to go in and cry on the poor old woman seized her, quickly fought off. It would be rude to just show up on her doorstep unannounced. Momo wasn't even related to her, by adoption or otherwise.

But, when Momo's uncle had taken ill and passed on a decade ago, she had said, _If you ever need to go home, you know you're always welcome here._

"Hello?" Momo said hesitantly, moving up to the doorway and sliding the door open carefully. "Hitsugaya-san, are you home?"

From inside, a woman's voice called, "Who is it? Momo-chan?"

_Momo-chan._ No one else had called her Momo in years and years, much less in such a tender way, and for a moment her eyes filled with tears because she was hopeless, absolutely hopeless. "Yes!" she managed, squeezing her eyes shut until she thought she could see straight again.

The old woman shuffled into the doorway, wiping her hands off on her apron. She was just as Momo remembered her: tiny, smaller than her grandson now, and somewhat hunched over, but her features were creased in such unconditional pleasure to see her. Momo thought she was beautiful.

"Oh, my dear girl, it's been so long since you visited me," the older woman said, moving with her arms outstretched to offer a hug, which Momo accepted all too gratefully. "Do you want to come in? I've just been preparing some natto for Toushirou--"

That horrible-smelling stuff they both liked so much; Momo choked a little, laughing. "No, if that's... If it's okay with you, we can sit out on the porch for a bit?"

It really had been a long time, she realized as she let her legs dangle over the edge like a child. It had been -- several months since the incident with Aizen, since waking from her coma and living mechanically, and even longer before then because she'd been caught up in the affairs of her division. Maybe as long as half a year.

"I'm so sorry it's taken me so long to come back," Momo said softly.

"No, dear, that's all right. Toushirou comes back, he tells me what you've been up to." Hitsugaya-san knelt slowly behind her and worked fingers into her hair, startling Momo for a moment as her hair came loose from its bun.

She hadn't really thought they talked about _her_, but it only made sense. Momo wondered how much Hitsugaya had told his grandmother -- if she _knew_ about Aizen. The idea that the poor old woman had been worrying about her all this time, when Momo hadn't so much as thought that was a possibility, made her feel so guilty.

"What -- what sort of things did he tell you?" she murmured.

Thoughtful, the old woman said, "Well, he mentioned that you'd been badly hurt in the invasion, but that you were in good hands and in no danger." She patted Momo on the shoulder. "I was relieved, but you know Toushirou, he wouldn't be coming to see me if your life was in danger, so I wasn't all that worried. I made up a little care package for you, did you ever get it?"

Momo hesitated, murmured, "No." What had been in it that they would have decided to confiscate it? A letter, maybe -- a letter mentioning her captain, kind and oblivious and heart-breaking. "When I go back to Seireitei, I'll try and find out what happened to it."

"Oh, dear, I wouldn't bother. Those peaches will all have rotted away." Hitsugaya-san sighed, sounding annoyed.

She couldn't help the little smile that crossed her lips. "Thank you anyway," Momo assured her. "Just knowing makes me happy."

There was something soothing about the old woman combing through her hair with thin fingers, that feeling of being a little girl again, out on the front porch being groomed with her legs swinging in the air. It pulled the question out of her, a wistful, little-girl question: "Have you ever been hurt by someone you thought you loved?"

The old woman paused for a beat, and then said softly, "Oh, Momo-chan. Everyone has." Those clever fingers started pulling her hair apart, half over each shoulder. "The heart is a very vulnerable thing, once you've let someone in. We all make mistakes in love. When I was much younger, and had just come to the Soul Society--"

"Who's there?" Momo said, her head turning quickly. She'd heard the footsteps before Hitsugaya-san, her hearing better and her senses more attuned. She wasn't carrying her zanpakutou, but her kidou was still strong, and she was already prepared, fingers braced against the wood boards, for the instant when she might have to cast a shield--

"I can't believe you'd ask me that in my own house," Hitsugaya said, coming up into her range of vision with his arms folded over his chest. His eyebrows were raised skeptically. "What are you doing here?"

"Toushirou," his grandmother said, pleased. "You two haven't been to see me together practically since you made captain."

"We didn't come _together_."

Momo realized that he must've come through the house, letting his footsteps be heard, so as not to startle his grandmother, and she almost smiled a bit before catching herself and turning to face the other way. "How did you know I was here?" she asked the sky.

Hitsugaya said only, "You weren't anywhere else."

"Were you looking for me?" Momo might have turned to face him again, but the old woman was already fixing her hair and she didn't want to mess it up again.

"Your third-seat couldn't find you, he came to ask me-- Are you putting her hair in pigtails?" He sounded exasperated. "Grandma, she's not twelve anymore."

His grandmother ignored his objection, saying, "I think the pigtails look sweet."

_If only I really could be twelve again,_ Momo thought, closing her eyes. When she was twelve, this place and her uncle's house had been the entirety of her world. She wouldn't have dreamed of a larger-than-life captain twining her around his fingers, of illusion and treachery blinding her so thoroughly that she still hadn't really remembered how to see beyond them. Her only worry had ever been what sort of mood Shiro-chan would be in when she went to visit him, whether he would snap and sulk, or smirk and yank at her pigtails.

Thus reminded, Momo looked up at him hovering over them. She pointed out, "You liked the pigtails before."

"That was _forty years ago_," Hitsugaya muttered, glancing away. "_Some_ of us have grown up a little since then."

"Boys are always so fixated on growing up," his grandmother said chidingly, twisting Momo's hair into neat tails. "That sort of teasing doesn't work on girls, Toushirou. Girls miss being young when they're all grown up."

For some reason that made her feel awkward, like she should clarify or demur that. Momo closed her eyes, but she could still feel Hitsugaya looking at her. "I'd go back if I could," she said softly.

To that peaceful, carefree time... When she didn't feel aching like every inch of her was bruised, didn't wonder if she could ever trust anyone to get close to her again, didn't feel useless and stupid and weak.

She had become a shinigami to protect that time, that life, but it seemed like she had only thrown it away with her own two hands.

"Hmph," was all Hitsugaya said. "I'll have to find something else to tease you about."

The old woman swept her pigtails over her shoulders, and Momo felt herself smile again, the thoughts banished as easily as warm, familiar hands brushing her hair into place, a gruff voice with the promise that tomorrow would be just like today, just like yesterday. Now that she thought about it, she hadn't really lost any of the important things.

She couldn't even feel weak when she was with them.

"Whatever it is, I won't listen to a word of it," Momo promised him.

"Hey, I'm your superior. You _have_ to listen to me."

"You've been saying that ever since I was ten and you beat me at spinning tops..."

"Now I'm _literally_ your superior. I could have you reported for insubordination!"

With a dry chuckle, the old woman got to her feet; Momo couldn't hear him move but she could feel his presence when Hitsugaya stepped closer to help her up. "Don't make a fuss, Toushirou. I made natto for you. Let's all go inside and have something to eat. When you arrived, I was just about to tell Momo-chan a story..."

Momo shifted, pushing herself off the porch to climb back up facing front. Hitsugaya didn't look at her, but he lowered a hand to help her up as well.

"Why did you come _here_?" he said softly, not letting go of her hand.

She didn't want him to. Momo said thoughtfully, "I didn't do it on purpose. But... they say that healing begins at home, right?"

Hitsugaya gave her a skeptical look, and she laughed.


End file.
